Additional Note on the Order of the Canterbury TalesAuthor(s): George ShipleySource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 11, No. 5 (May, 1896), pp. 145-147Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2918787 .

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289 May, 1896. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. Vol. xi, No. 5. 290

though he does not state in what respect. He simply says:

Etrange inadver/ance: Agamemnon dira plus loin qu'il attend Clytemnestre en mdme temps qu'Iphigdnie.

Gastd, on the other hand, draws a distinct parallel:

Dans Euripide, Agamemnon (vers 99-ioo) &crit a Clytemnestre d'envoyer au plus t6t Iphigdnie pour la donner en mariage a Achille. Agamemnon suppose qu'Iphigdnie viendra seule. Aussi est-il tr6s dtonnd de voir arriver Clytemnestre, sans &tre mandde (v. 456-457.)- Dans Racine, rien n'indique qu'Agamemnon attende Iphig6nie sans sa mere, puisqu'au vers 129, il dit A Arcas:

Prends cette lettre, cours au-devant de la reine.

Racine, au vers 9I, a donc commis une singu- li?re inadvertance, qu'on ne peut comprendre qu'en supposant qu'il a, tout en dcrivant cette scbne, modifid son plan primitif.

Geoffroy had already advanced the same opinion:-

Ce vers est une inadvertance de Racine; partout ailleurs il suppose que l'intention d'Agamemnon 6tait que Clytemnestre accom- pagnat sa fille en Aulide. Dans la m6me sc6ne on lit: V. 129 Cours au-devant de la reine.

DNs que tu la verras ddfends-lui d'avancer. v. 149 Pour renvoyer Ia fille et la mtre offens6e.

Chez Euripide, Agamemnon ne mande point Clytemnestre, mais lui ordonne seulement d'envoyer sa fille en Aulide.

All agree, therefore, in accusing Racine of an inadvertance,-Lanson through a miscon- ception of his own, Bernardin without at- tempting to enter into any explanation, and the rest because they interpret the verse to mean: "I had to separate mother and daughter in the land of Argos and induce the latter to come here alone."

In point of fact, the verse in question, Mais des bras d'une m;-re il fallait I'arracher,

bears no reference whatsoever to Iphigenia's journey from Argos to Aulis. It is intimately connected in thought with the verse next preceding, and expresses what to Agamem- non's mind will be the most difficult circum- stance attending the sacrifice. In fact, in his mental attitude toward this difficulty, he prefers to look upon it as a thing of the past, when at the fatal moment he had to wrest

Iphigenia from her mother's embrace. It is Clytemnestra whom Agamemnon most

fears, and this fear never leaves him, for he says: V. 147 D'une mere en fureur apargne-moi les cris. v. 394 Laissez-moi de I'autel dcarter une mere. V. 793 M'en croirez-vous? Laissez, de vos femmes suivie,

A cet hymen, sans vous, marcher Iphig6nie. v. Bog Madame, au nom des dieux auteurs de notre race,

Daignez i mon amour accorder cette grace. J'ai mes raisons.

V. 817 Vous avez entendu ce qtue je vous demande, Madame, je le veux, et je vous le commande. Obdissez.

Clytemnestra on her side justifies Aga- memnon's fears, and in fact she repeats his very words when she exclaims toward the end of her long tirade in the famous fourth scene of act iv: V. 1312 Des mnes bras tout saxglaxss ilfaudra I'arracher.

Aussi barbare dpoux qu'impitoyable p6re, Venez, si vous l'osez, I'arracher A sa mbre.

And immediately afterwards Agamemnon soliloquizes: V. 1317 A de moindres fureurs je n'ai pas da m'attendre,

Voil1, voill les cris que je craignais d'entendre.

The artifice, as Lanson correctly states, was merely to bring Iphigenia to the camp, and nothing is said abotit physical separation from her mother. Racine expects mother and daughter to come together to Aulis, and in breaking with Euripides in this particular he takes naturally into account-and his critics shouild have done the same-that there would have been a manifest impropriety in convey- ing to a French audience the impression, even momentary, that Iphigenia was to travel away from home unattended by her mother.

BENJAMIN DURYEA WOODWARD.

Columbia University.

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE ORDER OF THE Canterbury Tales.

SO.ME objections have been offered to the use I have made in a former article' of several lines in the Shipinan's Prologue. The Ship- man says that he will tell a merry tale.

I Arrangemene of he Canteriury Tales:; MOD. LANG.

NOTES, May, 1895.

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291 May, I896. MODERN LANGUA GE NO TES. Vol. xi, No. 5. 292

But it shal nat ben of philosophye, Ne phislyas, ne termes queinte of lawe; Ther is but litel Latin in my mawe.

B II88-9o.

"Now ' phislyas"' [-physician or physic] and 'termes queinte of lawe, ' " I said, " seem to point directly at the Doctor and the Man of Law, and 'of philosophy' very fitly charac- terizes the Pardoner's Tale."

Mr. Furnivall says he thinks it is the duty of all students of Chaucer to accept this sugges- tion, since the one defect in the grouping of the Canterbury Tales is thus remnedied; but he continues :3-

" Were it not for this sense of duty I should take as an instance of American humour Mr. Shipley's calling the Pardoner's Tale of the Three Rioters one of ' philosophy;' I should want ' phislyas' to mean medical remedies; and I should point out that neither the Doctor nor the Man-of-Law uses any terms of physic or law.

If there is any Tale which may be fairly called one of philosophy, it is the Tale of Melibe; and as there are in it physicians, surgeons, advocates, and Latin words-'causes whiche that clerkes clepen Oriens and Ef- ficiens and Causa longin qua and Causa pro- finqua,' besides englishings from Ovid, Cicero, Petrus Alphonsus, etc., while the whole tale is from the French version of the Liber Con- solationis et Consilii of Albertanus Brixiensis, I think one may fairly hold that, if the Ship- man alludes to any tale, he does so to Chaucer's Tale of Melibe. It would be just like Chaucer's fun to make the Shipman chaff *him-who was to tell the next tale but one."

Now every objection Mr. Furnivall makes to my use of the Shipman's words would hold good here also (not considering just now the question of the tale being one 'of philosophy.') Melibe truly contains physicians, surgeons, and advocates, but they speak only a few lines, giving advice to Melibe, and use no terms of physic or law; the Latin words quoted areall that the tale contains. 'Phislyas' and ' termes queinte of lawe' I took to refer more to the speaker than to his story, but still further justification for my interpretation of the lines may be found. The words of the Host to the Physician (C 30I-3I7) contain many medical terms-" thyne urinals and thy

Iordanes, thyn Ypocras, and eek thy Galianes" -and the Man of Law's Tale has the follow.- ing lines:-

And in encrees of Cristes lawe dere, B 237

The holy lawes of our Alkaron, B 332

Than Makometes lawe out of myn herte, B 336

and What shulde us tyden of this newe lawe.

B 337 Moreover the first part of the Tale of Con-

stance turns on the difference between Chris- tian and Mohammedan law (B 2I8-224); this difference is a bar to the marriage of Constance and the Sultan and upon this the catastrophe depends.

' Of philosophy' may, it is true, be fitly ap- plied to Melibe, but I still think it also ' fitly characterizes' the Pardoner's Tale. The Century Dictionary gives four meanings of ' philosophy' in Middle English:-moral phil- osophy, natural philosophy, any special sci- ence (as alchemy), theology; with the first of these meanings I would connect our reference.

The Pardoner's Tale (his whole discourse, not his story merely) is nothing but a sermon against drunkenness and gluttony (C 463-588), gambling (C 589-628), and swearing (C 629- 659), followed by a story to illustrate his text-the story of the three rioters guilty of the triple count of sin, who are led to murder each other through their covetous- ness. No stretching of conscience is needed to call this ethical; the Shipman was right in calling it 'of philosophye,'4 meaning moral philosophy; it is the 'moral tale' promised by the Pardoner himself (C 460) in accordance

2 Mr. J. H. Hessels assures me that he has scarcely any doubt but that I am perfectly right in mf interpretation of I phislyas.' 3 In The Academy for Oct. I2, I895, p. 297.

4 Chaucer's use of the word philosophy (or philosopher) is worthy of note; I find the word occurring elsewhere in the Canterbury Tale8 twenty-four times (not including B 2252, where it is interpolated). In eleven of these examples the meaning is clearly alchemy (or alchemist); they are all in the Canon'8 Yeoman'8 Tale :-G 862, I058, 1122, I139, I373m

1394, 1427, 1434, 1444, 1464,1473. Twice the meaning seems to be astrology (astrologer):-B 3IO and E 34 (see note by Skeat, Oxford Chaucer, v, p. 342). From these meanings to the more general one, 'magician,' is only a step; four oc- currences, all in the Franklin'8 Tale :-F I56I, 1572, I585,

-607. In the seven remaining examples philosophy means natural science or moral science and philosopher is used correspondingly :-A 295, 267 (a play on two meanings), 645; B 25; G 113; I 669, 805.

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293 May, I896. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. Vol. xi, No. 5. 294

with the demand of the other pilgrims,-"Tel us som moral thing, that we may lere som wit" (C 325).

The most serious objection to applying the words of the Shipman to Melibe is that the Shipman would then be made to refer to what had not taken place, and we can hardly sup- pose that he would chaff Chaucer about his story before he had told it. Closer study has strengthened my former opinion, that the proper place for the Doctor-Pardoner group is before the Mat of Law's Tale. I said5 that this position was airily half-proposed by Koch, but I inadvertently omitted to do Mr. F. G. Fleay the justice of stating that it was first suggested by him6 (it is a bare suggestion) in the Folk-Lore Record, I879, vol. ii, p. I62, almost hidden under a mass of 'Folk-Lore from Chaucer.'

GEORGE SHIPLEY. .johns Hopkins University.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO A BIBL IO- GRAPHY OF RACINE.

SPECIAL students of Racine are aware of the inadequacy of bibliographical aid for the study of this author. For Moliere there ex- ists the bibliography of M. Lacroix, for Cor- neille that of M. Picot. For Racine the latest and most extensive collection of material is contained in the Notice bibliografphique of M. Mesnard.' It is true that some years ago it was announced that M. Picot, the author of the Bibliographie cornilienne, intended to prepare a similar work for Racine; but in an- swer to an inquiry, he wrote that he had en- tirely abandoned this idea. It is very prob- ble, therefore, that for many years to come the bibliography of M. Mesnard will remain the chief authority for reference on this subject.

Of the sixty-seven pages of this bibliography the first fifty-eight are devoted to Racine's own works, while only the last nine pages, containing ninety-nine numbers, enumerate works on Racine. A few years ago I had special occasion to use this latter part of the bibliography, extendiig to the year I887, and I

soon became aware of its many omissions, es- pecially, but by no means exclusively, with reference to German contributions to Racine literature. Lists of additions accumulated rapidly, and I intended to complete and revise them at some library especially equipped for such work. Just then, however, I had to dis- continue this line of study. So I abandoned my plan, but tried to interest somebody else in the subject. Not successful in this effort I have decided to publish the material in hand, believing that, in spite of necessary shortcom- ings, these additions to M. Mesnard's biblio- graphy may be of some help to special stu- dents of Racine.

With very few exceptions, only works ex- pressly referring to Racine have been enumer- ated. Of articles in journals and magazines only the more important have been quoted. For works on both Racine and Corneille, M. Mesnard refers to the edition of Corneille by Marty-Laveaux; even more complete is the list in Picot.2 Also for works of a genieral character (encyclopeedias, biographical dic- tionaries, histories of literature, etc.) it will occasionally be helpful to refer to M. Picot's work.3

In many instanices I was unable to gain ac- cess to the works mentioned. The fact that in such cases the titles hiave been quoted at second-hand, may account for the occasional lack of uniformity in the data given. The ar- rangement of titles is alphabetic, according to the names of authors (if they are known). I also consider it necessary to state that the work on this article was practically concluded in the year I893, so that for the last few years there cannot be claimed for it even that ap- proximate completeness which was aimed at for the time previous to that date.

In the collection of material I have received valuable help from Dr. Pietsch of the New- berry Library at Chicago, and I am glad to avail myself of this opportunity for thanking him again for his ever-ready assistance.

i. ANGELL, J. B., Life and works of J. Ra- cine. Bibliotheca Sacra (I857), xiv, 597-622. 5 See my former article, Note 34.

6 Mr. Fleay calls my attention to this in a letter to The Academy for Oct. 26, 1895, p. 343.

I Vol. vii, pp. 377-444 (Grands tcrivains de la France).

2 Bibliograjkhi carndxienne, pp. 462 f. 3 Cf. also R. Kerviler, Essai d'une bibliograkhie raiseo-

xde de lAcademis Fran,aise, Paris, 1877.

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